forfaking of God. Here he gives all rebels a fic dicit dominus for. their defence. "I cannot here forget how irreverently this Eufebius Philadelphus, (for fo Mr. Theodore Beza was pleafed there to call himself) did use his own king Charles in his book, intituled, Reveille Martin, where he usually calls the king tyrant, and makes this anagram Chaffeur defloyal. Read his rimes and fcandalous reproaches against the queen mother; peruse the † forty articles recorded in that book, for the better advancement of feditious and rebellious government; and in the last of them they are obliged never to difarm, fo long as religion, as they call it, is pursued and prosecuted; that is, according to his meaning, fo long as the king goes about to chastise their rebellion. "It were too much to trouble my ingenuous reader with all thofe holy articles ‡ of Bearne, 1574, coyned with Mr. Theodore's own stamp, and communicated at Melun, to all the mofches of the French church, that they might the more ftrongly, as they faid, make war against their enemies, till it pleased God to turn the heart of the French tyrant. By all this it must be very evident, that Beza and • Reveille Martin, Nn4 ↑ Art. 40. his His rebellion against his lawful fovereign. Dr. Sutcliffe's condemnation trines. his followers have caufed all thofe uproars and commotions in France, when he himself writing to Chriftopher Thretius, fpeaks his refolution to fight it out to the very laft: Ego equidem pacem nullam, nifi debellatis boftibus, aufim fperare; he could hope no peace, till the enemies were quite fubdued. "I might here travel a great way further, and weary you with as good stuff out of the book † De Jure Magiftratus, a bird of the fame neft; for if it was not Beza's own, as moft think it was, it must needs be Ottoman's, one of his chief comrades. But Dr. Sut of Beza's doc cliffe a countryman of ours, and very near of the fame fect, confeffeth the book to be Beza's, and faith, that Beza in his book De Jure Magiftratus doth too much arm fubjects against their princes, and blameth him for going about to overthrow the authority of all Christian kings and magiftrates. Baldwyn condemns Calvin's and his difciples zeal against their lawful govern ors. "To Dr. Sutcliff may be added, the judgement of that famous lawyer § Francis Baldwin, who had particularly converft with Calvin at Geneva in his book called ReSponfio altera ad Jobannem Calvinum, Paris Epift. 40. Chriftoph. Thretio. Lib. de Jure Magiftratus. I Dr. Sutcliff. Francis Bald. Refp. alt. ad. Joh. Calv. p. 74. 1562, p. 74. Mirabar quorfum evaderet inflammatus tuus quidem apoftolus (fc. Mr. Theodorus Beza) qui cum hic concionaretur, fuis auditoribus vebementur commendabat extraordinarium illud exemplum Levitarum, ftriatis gladiis per caftra difcurrentium, & obvios quofque idolotras trucidantium; fed nunc audio te, vix contentum effe talibus Levitis. * And p. 128, Leviora (faith he) funt illa; cum ftatuis, fepulchris, & offibus principum ac martyrum, barbarum bellum indicum videmus, cum civitates occupari, fana fpoliari audimus, &c. I wondered, faith he, what your fierce apoftle meant, and whither he would (by name Mr. Theodore Beza); who, when he preached here did most extreamly recommend to his auditory that extraordinary example of the Levites running through the camp with their drawn fwords, and killing all the idolaters they met withal; but now I hear, that you are hardly contented with fuch moderate Levites, &c. And then in p. 128. Thofe are small matters (faith he) to what we hear and fee now; a barbarous war is waged with the ftatues, fepulchres, and bones of kings and princes, nay and of martyrs. Cities are Francis Bald. Refp. alt. ad Joh. Calv. p. 128. 1 Origin of ana baptifts. feized on by force, churches prophaned and * "And Dr. Sutcliff adds yet further, that that book of Vindicie contra Tyrannos gives a power to fubjects not onely to refift, but to kill their kings, if they impugne God's religion, of which and all their other mifdemeanors, they must be the onely judges, as it is fit they fhould be." By way of prelude to the levelling fcenes ex- tifts. The peculiarity of these fectaries did * Had not Baldwyn written and printed these letters, in 1562, it might naturally have been fuppofed, that he was defcribing the fcenes acted upon our own theatre, between eighty and ninety years after that time; fo truę is it, that fimilar caufes produce fimilar effects. + Guy de Bres Erreures des Anabaptistes, p. 27. "But "But thefe men, in whofe mouths at the Their doctrines first founded nothing, but mortification of and practices. the flesh were come at the length to think, they might lawfully have their fix or feven wives a piece. They, who at the first thought judgment and juftice itself to be merciless cruelty; accounted at the length their own hands fanctifyed with being imbrued in christian bloud. They, who at first were wont to beat down all dominion, and to urge against poor conftables kings of nations, had at length both confuls and kings of their own erection amongst themselves. Finally, they who could not brook at firft, that any man fhould feek, no not by law the recovery of his goods. injuriously taken, or withheld from him, were grown at the laft to think, they could not offer unto God more acceptable facrifice, then by turning their adverfaries clean out of house and home; and by enriching themselves with all kind of fpoil and pillage. "For a further character of them, Sleidan Their levelling tell us, that Muncer, by his new doctrine principles. touching goods to be in common, incited the boores of Franconia and Turingen to undertake the holy-war (as he called it) against * Dugdale's Short View of the late Troubles in England, c. i. p. 5, & feq. |
